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Neonode Inc. (NEON)

Q1 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, May 8, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for standing-by and welcome to Neonode's First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would like to direct your attention to the company's PowerPoint slide-deck that you can view when logged on to this call. The company will control the navigation through the slide-deck to coincide with their prepared remarks. Thank you. At this time for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to the turn the call over to David Brunton, Neonode's Head of Corporate Investor Relations. David, please go ahead and start the conference.

David Brunton

Analyst

Welcome and thank you for joining us. On today's call, we will review our first quarter 2018 financial results and provide a corporate update. Our update will include details of customer activities, technology developments and other items of interest. On the call today with us is Håkan Persson, our CEO; and Lars Lindqvist, our CFO. Before turning the call over to Mr. Persson, I would like to make the following remarks concerning forward-looking statements. All statements in this conference call, other than historical facts, are forward-looking statements. The words anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, tend, will, guides, confidence, targets, projects, and other similar expressions typically are used to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements do not guarantee the future performance that may involve or be subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may affect Neonode's business, financial position and other operating results, which include, but are not limited to the risk factors and other qualifications contained in Neonode's Annual Report on 10-K, Quarterly Reports on 10-Q, and other reports filed by Neonode with the SEC to which your attention is directed. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expected or implied by these forward-looking statements. Neonode expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Håkan Persson, Chief Executive Officer of Neonode. Håkan, please go ahead. Håkan Persson: Thank you, David. Thank you. I should probably note I was appointed as CEO in February and started my precision about a month ago and I am very happy to be here. Today, I will present the highlights for the first quarter, present myself and my background and give you a flavor of right where I see Neonode today and our platform. So…

Lars Lindqvist

Analyst

Thanks, Håkan. You can find our first quarter earnings release and 10-Q available for download from the Investor Relations section of our website at neonode.com. You can also find a slide deck that is presented today available from the Investor section. In the first quarter 2018, Neonode adopted the new revenue recognition standard ASC 606, which requires the company reported all revenues in the quarter that corresponds to the actual customer sales. Previously the company reported revenues in the quarter in which the sales report was received from the customers. ASC 606 requires the company to estimate revenues in case with actual customer sales report has not received by the financial reporting filing date. . : Our total revenues in the quarter is basically flat compared to last year, but would have increased 9% if we started prior year related to the exchange in revenue recognition rule. Our total license fees increased compared to same period last year even though we had $230,000 decrease due to the account measures. Our first quarter is typically higher than the fourth quarter due to higher sales during the Christmas season for customers’ products such as eReader and printers. Previous to the accounting exchange, we reported our customers’ fourth quarter sales in our first quarter when we received the sales reports. I want to talk about the licensing in more details in the next slide. AirBar sales decreased as expected from $200,000 to $46,000 in 2018. We’re going to see AirBar as a significant revenue opportunity going forward and are evaluating different options to monetize our investment support and collaboration. Our net loss was $700,000 or $0.01 per share in the first quarter compared to $900,000 or $0.02 per share in the same period last year. Our operating expenses for the quarter amounted to…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Mike Malouf with Craig-Hallum Capital.

Mike Malouf

Analyst

Yes, thanks for taking my questions guys. My first question is on the auto side. Could you talk a little bit about sort of as you look out over the next six to nine months, particularly on the sensor side, what kind of opportunities do we have to get to revenues in that period? And then secondly, it sounds like you have lost a Chinese customer due to a design change. Could you give us a little bit more color on that? And that I think you said that you might be able to get that back through the sensor modules, but provide some clarity on that as well. Thanks. Håkan Persson: Yes, hello. With respect to the auto segment, I mean, we see rather strong interest actually on the external door sensor type of applications. And this project that we have ongoing is on the finance development project, which is stable over the 12 months and we see a similar type of interests, similar type of applications going forward. And with respect to the Chinese situation, I think perhaps Lars can fill in, but basically how these guys work as they do have more than one solution potentially in play and then given where they sit, they choose either. And I think what we do now is clarifying our future roadmap with respect to our technology, as I said, we are refining zForce CORE and we believe and we know that from a performance perspective, we have a very good product. So I am quite optimistic about that we have the opportunity in the back actually.

Mike Malouf

Analyst

And on the door sensor side, is that actually…

Lars Lindqvist

Analyst

Lars here, Mike…

Mike Malouf

Analyst

Yes.

Lars Lindqvist

Analyst

Lars here. I have to add in something too. These two Chinese Tier 1s, they represented approximately $200,000 for the total automotive revenue in the first quarter of 2017 and now down to 50k. So they are not out of game and that’s also why we basically believe that addressing now with the new zForce CORE phase lift that that is something we bring back to customers that, yeah, basically to all customers.

Mike Malouf

Analyst

Okay, great. That’s helpful. And then when you look at the door handle opportunity, is that something that is potentially going to go to market this calendar year or is this more of a 2019 or 2020 opportunity? Håkan Persson: Yeah the timeline is always difficult because there is so much that can happen in process like this. But hopefully we will see some traction at the end – towards the end of the year.

Mike Malouf

Analyst

Okay, great. And then Lars maybe a question for you, you said that you’re trending to get to that $3 million per quarter. When do you think based on your plans that you will have a $3 million expense quarter? And do you think that’s sustainable?

Lars Lindqvist

Analyst

Hello, Mike, a little bit hard to hear what you say, but next question being up – louder a little bit. But when it comes to expenses, we really are focusing pretty much on tight cost follow up and control. And when we have streamlined our expenses into customer driven projects also NRE finance, not revenues, but finance your payment, we then also offset some of our expenses in that investment. So I am quite confident that the $3 million run rate for quarter, we will receive quite soon.

Mike Malouf

Analyst

Okay, thank you very much for the help.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of James Mezedeith with Cowen & Company

James Mezedeith

Analyst · Cowen & Company

Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Sorry, can you hear me? Hello? I am sorry, can you hear me? Hello.

Operator

Operator

And James Mezedeith…

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Yes, can – hello, good morning. Can you hear me? Håkan Persson: Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the modules business in the sensor modules and I didn’t – couldn’t hear exactly, clearly that you – that you’ve mentioned two new projects that you’re working on, one of which was related to aerospace and didn’t catch what the second one was. Håkan Persson: Well, what we talked about was two as you say. One is for cockpit instrumentation panel project that we are running, which is in the aerospace and then probably automotive space, where we have an external door sensor project going on.

James Mezedeith

Analyst

And that’s a new door project… Håkan Persson: Sorry?

James Mezedeith

Analyst

That’s a project that’s you are already working on. Håkan Persson: Yes, this is a new project that we are working on.

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Okay. And secondly you mentioned that NRE is a good business because not only because it generates revenue but because it generates future business, but there was no NRE in this quarter. How should we think about those revenue streams in the next several quarters or years? Håkan Persson: Yeah, well, we would see NRE revenues coming up through these projects, but I think the important thing here is that they are laying the foundation of future sensor sales. Lars, do you had a comment on this?

Lars Lindqvist

Analyst

Yeah, Lars here. Yeah, if you recall, going back a little bit, we stated earlier that we maybe see that our NRE revenues, payment revenues will go down, but now the focus is very much aligned to that the projects will run, focused and selected that they will have NRE connected to them. And we have ordered to have NRE payments coming in now and expect more to come, but it’s a little bit too premature to say what the markets will be, but it will be NREs. And as we look forward and sign on new contracts, we will let you know more about those details.

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Okay, thanks. And my final question…

David Brunton

Analyst

James…

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Yes…

David Brunton

Analyst

James, this is Dave. Just to be clear, there is two things that happen with NRE. The first is they pay us the NRE and it goes in to deferred revenue and tell such time as whatever milestone that that payment is associated with is completed. So we can get payments of – I will go back to the Autoliv payments for example. If you remember back a couple of years ago – 18 months ago or a couple of years ago, they paid us like $3 million upfront, right. And that was recognized into revenue over a 12 month period, really I think 16 months period or something as those milestones of that cash was related to or completed and accepted by Autoliv. So the same dynamics is here. We may have cash come in and it may not be recognized into the income statement for – I don’t know it could be some time before that portion is complete and milestone has met. Does that make sense?

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Yes, absolutely. In fact that was – that’s the perfect lead in to my next question, which is the deferred revenue declined by $1.1 million in the quarter from – declined by about $1 million in Q1 and I wondered what was the cause of that and how much of… Håkan Persson: Okay, 50% of the deferred revenue is related to prepaid license fees for some of our customers. We are a bit quite successful in getting that earlier and the rest of it is basically related to deferred revenue recognition of all AirBar and module sales when there are agreements when they can return some part of it and then we then don’t record revenues till it is sold through, I’d say the sell-through so to say policy with all of our accounting recommendation.

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Okay, thanks. Is it safe to say that the cash is not yet come in for these new NRE projects that you’re working on? Håkan Persson: No, there is not that NRE payments that they normally pay all at upfront, they are normally – let me say a general guidance could be that part of let’s say for example US$100,000 NRE. We try to get 50% sign up the contract because it’s the commitment fee and the rest of it is linked to different milestones during the project. So we try to secure that we will not finance customers. We want to have a commitment fee and absorption amount already with the standard agreements.

James Mezedeith

Analyst

Okay. Thanks for – thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And at this time you have no further questions. Håkan Persson: Thanks everybody for joining us and have a good day.